Middlegame
by fanfic n00b
Summary: Lily and Severus wait out a storm that has interrupted their Hogsmeade weekend.


"Why are you doing it like that?"

"Like what?"

"Without magic."

Lily looked up from the emerald and silver scarf she was knitting and took a sip of her overly-sugared tea. Chilly December sleet had sent them into the cafe, and anyway they were too old for Hogsmeade's joke shops and candy shops anymore.

"I dunno. I like it. I like doing it," she said.

"You're wasting your time like that," Severus said, sinking lower into the threadbare armchair and peering at her over his battered copy of _Advanced Potionmaking_.

"Yeah. Maybe. So what?"

"So I _know_ you. I know what you can do." He was crossing something out emphatically in the margins of his book. His fingers were stained with ink.

"Is that a compliment? I can never tell with you."

He stopped scribbling and met her eyes. He raised one eyebrow. "It's your turn," he said.

She looked down at the chess pieces. Some of them gazed up at her with quizzical expressions, wondering what to do next. She considered them. "Knight to F6," she said.

Her knight seized Severus' pawn by the shoulders and threw it off the board, sending it halfway across the table. She caught the struggling pawn with one hand and set it in the neat row of black pieces she had won from him.

Severus leaned forward, not bothering to sweep his dark hair out of his eyes as he bent over the board.

"You should get your eyes checked," she said. "Maybe you need glasses."

"No I don't," he said, not looking up from the game. "Queen to A7."

"Bollocks," she muttered as he collected her rook and set it in his own cache of her ivory pieces.

"Maybe if you were paying attention to the game..." he trailed off.

She took another sip of tea. Yes, five sugars was at least one too many. "What makes you think I'm not paying attention?"

He went back to his book, half his face hidden behind his tufty grey quill. He sorely needed a new one. He did not answer.

"What's wrong with your tea?" she asked.

"S'fine," he said.

"You haven't touched it."

"M'not that hungry. Thirsty. Whatever." He started scribbling again. He seemed to be working something out as he went along.

"Alright, whatever," she said. "Pawn to E3. You do that essay for Binns?"

"Yeah."

"And?"

"And what? Goblin rebellions. Same shit as always. Waste of time," he said.

He bent low over the board again, considering his next move, still holding his tatty quill in his left hand.

"Why are you so worried about wasting time all of a sudden?" she asked.

He looked up and ran his finger over his thin mouth, considering her, considering the game, thinking two thoughts at once. Or perhaps more than two. "I just don't like pointless tasks," he said at last.

It wasn't only this newfound obsession with time, though, she reflected. All of his priorities seemed to be shifting, like steel shavings drawn to a magnet, like grit circling a drain. Moving imperceptibly at first, but lately, faster and faster. Sometimes the things that came out of his mouth were so -

"Castle," he said. His rook and King changed places. "I make time for you."

Lily finished her tea and pondered the sodden tea leaves spread like washed-up kelp along the bottom of her cup. "What do you reckon?" she asked, holding the cup out to him. "Specter of death or a couple of puffskeins on holiday in Majorca?"

They both loathed Divination and had given it up a year prior. But it always made for a good laugh between them. Prophesies, they agreed, were a load of shit.

He accepted her teacup and turned it around and around in his hand. He tapped his finger lazily on the rim. "Honestly? Looks more like a lightning bolt."

She finished a row of stitches and started to purl.

"Suppose that's a sign we're stuck in here for the foreseeable future," she said, nodding at the window, where frozen rain was still pelting down on the village.

He handed the cup back to her. "Suppose so," he said, a smile pulling up one side of his mouth. He buried his nose in his book again and settled even deeper into his chair.

The storm clouds grew thicker and darker, and hail began to beat an arrhythmic tattoo on the roof. Lily and Severus spent the next hour in near-silence. She ordered more tea.

Their game ended in stalemate, with two lonely kings and their bishops wandering the empty board like vagabonds.


End file.
